Plunging In

I live on the East Coast, where it gets sticky hot and humid in the middle of summer. Seven years ago, there was a hot spell in the middle of July, just like that. I had a ton of sales calls to make after lunch, when the air conditioning went out in our office. As the temperature inched up inside, my temper started to rise with all of the paperwork, and I started dreaming about the ocean. I could not help it, and finally, I gave in to the temptation.

I just got up and left. I left my jacket on my chair so that it would just look as though I were going to the refrigerator or something. I said nothing to my secretary. I got to the elevator in the hall without anyone noticing me, which was surprising given how large the office was. There was a small satellite office one floor down, and my heart skipped a beat when the elevator stopped on the floor below. However, someone got in from another company, and she did not know me, and she did not know that I was ditching work to go to the beach! But I had to. I just could not control the desire. Haven't you ever had a desire like that? Out of control, just must do it.

I got to the underground parking garage, and almost ran to my car. I got inside, closed the door, and thought that now I had made my escape. The air conditioning in the car did not work either, but I did not care. In a half hour, I would be at the beach. I kicked off my shoes, and drove like a maniac. I tried to keep the speed down, but the urge to submerge was building inside of me.

In half an hour, I was there. I pulled the car into the first parking space. It was a weekday, and this particular beach was a favorite of mine because it typically was not very crowded, given that there tended to be rip currents and big waves, so this beach was not popular with families. Best of all, it was the middle of the work week, so the parking lot was far from full. In my overheated state, I could not understand why everyone was not there, but so much the better.

I took everything out of my pockets with reckless abandon. Wallet, pens, notes from work, loose cash. It all seemed like such trash at the moment. I could hear the surf pounding the sand in the distance, and I just wanted to be on the beach, free of all the work related junk that was jammed into my pockets. I threw the detritis from work onto the floor of the passenger seat, and I barely had the presence of mind to keep the car keys in my pocket. I then got out of the car, and ran through the connecting tunnel that led to the beach.

Of course, I had no swimsuit, and no towel either. Who could be bothered to stop for stuff like that when daylight was burning, it was over ninety degrees, and the ocean was calling. I had just escaped from work, and I was not about to waste time at a department store buying stuff.

I put my car keys in a shoe and threw my shoes onto the sand about one hundred feet from where the waves were breaking. It was high tide and the waves were spilling up far onto the sand. The humid, salty air smelled fantastic. Gulls wheeled overhead, and the stress of work started to subside. The sea breeze had not yet kicked in, and it was pretty damned hot under the broiling sun. I had to stick my feet in the water. No choice about it. I rolled up my blue jeans. They were my best, newest pair of jeans, that I occasionally wore to the office with a sport jacket (still on the back of my chair in the office), but this was no time to worry about a little sand on a pair of jeans!!

I walked up just to that moving line where the water reached its high point before falling back. Then I took another few steps in. God, that felt great! Just as I was starting to relax, a voice interrupted me, asking if I knew whether the restaurant on the pier was open. My initial reaction was to think, "who cares?" However, when I turned around, my irritation quickly subsided. Standing to my side was a beautiful young woman in her mid twenties or so. She was standing barefoot in a pair of dark blue jeans and a light blue denim shirt, tied off at the midriff. She clutched her shoes in one hand. She had long brown shiny hair that fell past her shoulders, but not styled in any way. Completely natural. I could see a line of sweat on her forehead. It was that hot.

I blurted out, "You look hot."

She completely misunderstood my meaning, and said "Of all the lines, that is ridiculous!!"

Before I could clarify, she threw up her hands in disgust, and slapped her hand against her own hip, dropping both shoes into the water that had just come up again.

"My shoes!" she exclaimed.

But it was high tide, and the wave that had just came in started to rush out again. I could feel the wave pulling sand back out into the ocean, as the sand mingled with the water rushed past my feet. The receding wave had some speed to it, and so did the woman's shoes. She and I both raced forward to grab them, when another, much larger wave started to break close in to where we now were.

It all happened in a second. Before she could pick up either of the shoes, a wave crashed down just a foot from where she was standing. The surf then rushed in with the high tide. I was immediately soaked above my knees, and Sandi (I later found out her name), who was standing a foot or so further in, was drenched to the middle of her thighs. There was a strong current, so the shoes had completely disappeared into the undertow.

As the wave then receded with a rush back out, soaking the backs of our jeans, Sandi and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Sandi reached into her pocket, took out a key ring with what seemed to be a million keys, and threw them up onto the beach, out of reach this time of the incoming surf. She looked down at her soaked state, and said, "Those shoes have to be here somewhere. I can't get on the bus without shoes. My jeans are already soaked, so we might as well wade in a little more and see if we can feel them with our feet on the bottom. Let's not go in more than waist deep. I don't want to get my shirt or hair wet, because I have to be somewhere later."

Frankly, I would have liked to see her all the way in, but I told her, "Waist deep, my thoughts exactly." I told her that earlier, I was just talking about the weather being hot, and she frowned and said, "so I'm not hot after all?"

I was at a loss of what to say, so she said "Come on, it feels like an oven out here." and she grabbed my hand and we went wading a little farther out.

"Just up to my waist, I don't want to get my shirt and hair wet."

I agreed. This was so much better than being at the office, with all of that stupid paperwork.

At that point, the ocean subsided a bit, and the tide seemed to rush out, or at least that's how it looked. We walked about ten steps in, and with the receding waves, it did not seem deeper. We waded a little farther out again, and I began to wonder if we were on a sand bar, when suddenly, both of us walked into deeper water. The water was suddenly over Sandi's waist. She was chest deep and she looked down and said "Oh look, my shirt is all wet." I was fine with that. You could see her black bra clearly through her shirt, and some great curves under that.

At that moment, while I was still studying Sandi's shirt, a large wave seemed to come out of nowhere. This beach was known for that. It seemed at least three feet high and was breaking right in front of us. Sandi yelled "dive, dive," so we both did. Sandi dove in first and I just got a glimpse of her plunging underneath the crest, her feet disappearing in that gorgeous wall of water. We dove under the breaking wave, and came up sputtering and laughing. She said "so much for my shirt and hair, I look like a wreck." Sandi floated on her back in the swells. She wore little makeup when dry, but a little mascara ran down her cheek. The knot in her shirt had come undone, and her shirt tails floated around her. She stood up, and the swells were above her chin. Her silky brown hair was now plastered to her head and face, as the shoulder length part of her hair literally floated around her. Something came over me, and I just kissed her, passionately. Irresistable. I could not help it. This had always been a fantasy, but to see a woman this beautiful, so completely drenched, left me helpless. To my surprise, she kissed me back, tenderly, soflty and sweetly. We broke off, and a little saliva dribbled down her chin, into the ocean. We kissed again, while we hugged each other, and a larger swell lifted both of us gently off of the sandy ocean bottom, and then gently put us down again.

I told her that as long as we were soaked, we might as well enjoy it. She enthusiastically agreed, and she dove under and pulled my legs from under me. She came up, with water streaming down her face, and I kissed her again. We were in the swells, just past where the waves started to break, and the rolling motion, with Sandi soaked to the skin, was a fantastic combination. Sandi said she sometimes came to the beach unplanned, and frequently wound up in the water, clothes and all, but that she loved the spontaneity. I told her that I felt the same way. We must have stayed in the ocean for two hours. My watch had been pulled off by the waves, Sandi's shoes were gone, but we did not care at all.

We swam back in and a monster wave crashed into us from behind. Both of us were swept off our feet and literally plowed head first into the sand in the shallows. We got up and walked out, with our clothes plastered to our skin. Sandi pulled on the front of her shirt, and it literally made a sucking sound. We both laughed, and ran up onto the baking hot sand. She retrieved her keys and we walked to where my shoes were. We both fell forward onto the sand. The baking heat felt great.

Sandi rolled over on one arm, looked at me, and said, "I must look like a complete mess." I just rolled over on top of her, and kissed her wet face a dozen times. Our clothes were getting completely covered with sand, but who cared? Sand got in Sandi's hair, my hair, her shirt, her blue jeans. We both were covered in it.

Eventually, we were so covered in sand, and the beach was still so baking, baking hot, that we got up and ran into the ocean, and dove underneath another monster wave. We played in the water until after the sun went down.

And that is how I met Sandi, with whom I lived for three years. Eventually, the pressures of life pulled us apart. I regret that to this day. She went for post graduate training elsewhere, and I was stuck in that God awful job. Getting pulled apart was terrible.

But that first summer was the best. We went to the same beach every day that we could. It got to be so bad that I was put on probation at work. Some mornings, I would drive Sandi to work, and then drive to my office. Or at least that was the plan. When I saw her kick off her shoes to get in the car, something came over me. I loved her, and I would find myself driving us to the beach. Sandi felt the same way, and she would just look at me, smile, and say that she just felt too sick to work. Only plunging into the ocean could cure it. Then we would both laugh, and we were happy. We were terrible employees, but many days, we were wet, drenched and happy.

Sometimes, Sandi had to dress up for work at the bank. But if the temperature was over seventy degrees, we were helpless. Instead of getting on the highway to work, I took a left turn towards the shore. Sandi would smile, and hum a tune. Once, she was in her best red suit jacket with a dressy white blouse, black skirt but no hose underneath. When we got to the beach (it was a scorcher that day, work had no chance), we just threw down our shoes and keys, and all of that work junk, and ran and PLUNGED into the waves. Sandi came up, hair plastered to her head, and wrapped her arms and legs around me. We made love right there in the ocean, which was not easy, but we had to do it. Just had to. Stayed in the water all day, until the first stars began to come out. The red suit jacket was completely ruined, but who cared?

I have never again found anyone with as much zest for life, albeit a soaked and drenched life, as Sandi. Although we are no longer together, the memory of those three years will be part of me forever.

ralphfred2
copyright 2013
may not be re-published without permission of the author
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